Hitherto, various kinds of developing agent penetrants have been investigated for increasing the coloring property of color photographic light-sensitive materials and, in particular, a process of quickening color development by adding benzyl alcohol to a color developing solution has been widely used at present for the processing of color photographic materials because of accelerating a coloring effect, particularly color photographic papers.
However, a color developing solution containing benzyl alcohol tends to cause stains. In general, to inhibit the generation of stains, it is effective to use preservatives such as a hydroxylamine salt and a sulfite in concentrations of from 1.2.times.10.sup.-2 to 8.times.10.sup.-2 mol/liter and from 0.02 to 0.04 mol/liter, respectively. Since developing solutions containing such preservatives in concentrations lower than the above-described values have resulted in significant generation of stains, decreases in the required addition amounts of those preservatives have so far failed to be achieved.
In adding benzyl alcohol to a color-developing solution, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, an alkanolamine, or the like is required as a solvent, because benzyl alcohol has poor solubility in water.
Since, however, the above-described compounds including benzyl alcohol have high BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) and COD (chemical oxygen demand) pollution loading values, it is preferred to avoid use of benzyl alcohol as much as possible.
Furthermore, even in the case of using the aforesaid solvent, it requires a long time to dissolve benzyl alcohol, and hence it is also better to avoid use of benzyl alcohol for the purpose of reducing the work load involved in preparing the solution of benzyl alcohol.
Also, when benzyl alcohol existing in a color developing solution is carried in a bleach bath or a blix (bleach-fix) bath which is a post-bath of the color developing solution, it causes the formation of the leuco dye of a cyan dye, which further causes the reduction of coloring density. Still further, when such benzyl alcohol exists in a bleaching solution or a blix solution, it delays the washing out speed of developing solution components from color photographic materials, and hence it sometimes results in adverse influences on the stability or storability of color images of processed color photographic materials. Accordingly, it is also preferred to avoid use of benzyl alcohol for these reasons also.
Color development is generally performed for about 3 to 4 minutes, but recently with the shortening of the time for delivering finished photographic products and the reduction of laboratory work, it has been desired to shorten the processing time for photographic materials.
On the other hand, when the development time for color photographic materials is shortened without using benzyl alcohol, which is a coloring accelerator, the coloring density is inevitably greatly reduced.
For solving the above-described problems, various color development accelerators have been described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,950,970, 2,515,147, 2,496,903, 2,304,925, 4,038,075, 4,119,462, British Pat. No. 1,455,413, Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 15831/78, 62450/80, 62451/80, 62452/80, 62453/80, 50536/83 and 162256/85 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), Japanese patent publication Nos. 12422/76, 49728/80, etc. However, even by the use of these color development accelerators, a satisfactory coloring density has not yet been obtained.
Also, methods for incorporating color developing agents in color photographic materials are proposed as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,719,492, 3,342,559, 3,342,597, Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 6235/81, 16133/81, 97531/82, 83565/82, etc., but these methods have disadvantages in that the color development is delayed and the formation of fog is increased, and thus are not proper methods.
Furthermore, a method of using a silver chloride emulsion as described, for example, in Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 95345/83, 232342/84, 19140/85, etc., may shorten the color development time but is likely to be difficult to attain a high sensitivity. In addition, color forming property is impaired to a great extent in the presence of sulfurous acid ion.
Thus, a method for forming color images having sufficiently excellent color forming property and reduced stain using a color developing solution substantially free from benzyl alcohol in a short time would be highly desirable.
Methods of accelerating color development by incorporation of 1-phenyl-3-pyrazolidone derivatives in silver halide color photographic materials are described in Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 144547/82, 146236/85, 50532/83, 115438/83, 158444/85, 158445/85, and 165651/85, etc. In addition, methods for reducing a benzyl alcohol concentration are described in Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 50536/83 and 158446/85.
However, none of these patents describe improvements brought about in photographic properties under the condition that a color developing solution contains substantially no benzyl alcohol, and furthermore, a color developing time reduced to less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds.